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LIBRARY OF CONORESS. 

PRESENTED BY 

i UNITED STATES or AMERICA. 




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^^. New York City Council 



POLITICAL EEEORM. 



FIVE REPORTS. 



L- SURFACE STREET RAILROADS: Value of 

their Franchises ; Profits ; Taxation. 
2.-A TAMMANY PERMIT BUREAU. 

3.-SECTARIAN APPROPRIATIONS of PUBLIC 
MONET. 

4.-The EXPOSURE of the TAMMANY FRAUDS 

A N D 

5.-DUTY of the STATE to PROTECT the FREE 

COMMON SCHOOLS by Amendments to 
the Constitution. 







J Ay V AMY iSa, 18 


73. 












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NEW YORK 








Evening 


Post 


Steam Presses, 41 Nassau 


Street, 


COR. 


Liberty 


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No Donations of Public Property to Private Corporations; 



^ Equality of Taxation. 



^ 



THE STREET RAILROADS 

OF THE 

CITY OF NEW YORK. 



Over $10,000,000 of Franchises in the Public Streets 
Given to Railroad Corporations. 

Over $5,000,000 of these Estates Untaxed for the 
last Four Years. 



REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE 

ON 

Political Reform of Union League Club, 

Made January 9, 1873. 



NEW YOEK: 
Evening Post Steam Presses, 41 Nassau St., coe. Libeett. 

1873. 



New York City Council of Political Eeform. 



In October last, the New York City Council of Political Reform appointed 
Dexter A. Hawkins a Committee to take such measures as he should deem 
requisite to secure to the city just compensation for the use of the three or four 
miles of additional streets granted by the last Legislature to the Second Avenue 
Railroad Company. 

At the meeting of the Council, held at their rooms, No. 938 Broadway, on the 
21st day of January, 1873, the Committee made the following 

REPORT: 

In the performance of the duty imposed by the Council, your Committee had 
the streets granted examined by gentlemen of long experience in both street rail- 
roads and steam railroads. 

Then, in order to deduce a just rule of valuation for the franchise of a surface 
street railroad in this City, the whole business for the year ending September 30, 
ISTl, of Eight of the City Street Railroads, covering over fifty miles of track, 
similar in location and patronage to the 2nd Avenue Road, was investigated, and 
the actual earnings of the franchise of each for the year determined. 

Numerous witnesses, skilled in street railroads, were examined under oath, the 
work occupying nearly three months. 

The facts disclosed seem to be of so great value to the public, as a guide for 
future legislative action, that, after argument before the Commissioners, your Com- 
mittee prepared a General Report, which appears below, upon the subject of 
the franchises of Surface Street Railroad Companies in the City of New York, 
their value, and the true rule of valuation of the estates of these corporations for tax- 
ation. 

The Report was read to the Union League Club, at their Annual Meeting, on 
the 9th inst., and the recommendations therein contained, and the three Resolu- 
tions at the end of the Report were unanimously adopted by that body. 

Your Committee now makes the same report and recommendations to you. 

DEXTER A. HAWKINS, 

Committee. 
New York, January 15, 1873. 

On motion of Dorman B. Eaton, the Report was received and accepted ; the 
three Resolutions at the end of the same, adopted by the New York City Council 
of Political Reform. The thanks of the Council were also presented to Mr. 
Hawkins, for his exhaustive and valuable Report, and the same was authorized to 
be published as one of the official documents of the Council. 

WM. H. NEILSON, 

Chairman. 
H. N. Beers, 

Secretary. 



The Committee on Political Reform of the Union League Club 
make the folloiving Report : 

On the first day of this month, Keform City and State 
Governments entered upon the administration of the affau'S of 
the City and of the State of New York. 

The people have received from the corruptionists and incom- 
petents, just expelled from office, a legacy of enormous debt, 
and of large deficits in both City and State revenues. 

In order to meet these and hgliten our burdens, the publiG 
'property of the city can no longer he given away to private 
parties, nor can wealthy business corporations be suffered as 
heretofore to escape taxation. 

A prolific source of official and legislative corruption, has been 
Street Railroads. 

The land of the streets was acquired, and the streets graded 
and paved at public expense. The use of them for railroads 
is a source of great profit to the companies, as they afford 
ready for the track a road-bed that has cost the city many 
millions of dollars, and is worth as much to these companies. 

The promoters of these roads at first attempted to obtain 
their franchises from the City Government, and the following 
grants were secured : 

1. Sixth Avenue E. E., June, 1851, see F. L. and E. E. G., 
1866, p. 249. 

2. Eighth Avenue E. E., Sept., 1851, see F. L. and E. E. G., 
1866, p. 272. 

3. Second Avenue E. R., Nov., 1852, see F. L. and E. E. G., 
1866, p. 173. 

4. Third Avenue E. E., Dec, 1852, see F. L. and E. E. G., 
1866, p. 181. 

5. Broadway E. E., Dec, 1852, see F. L. and E. E. G., 1866, 
p. 248. 

6. Ninth Avenue E. E., Sept., 1853, see F. L. and E. E. G., 
1866, p. 296. 



Besides the 

N. Y. & Harlem E. R., Dec, 1831, see F. L. and R. R. G., 
186G, p. 221. 

Hudson R. K, May, 1847, see F. L. and R. R. G., 1866, p. 
313. 

The immense vahies thus given away by a simple resolution 
of the Common Council opened up visions of sudden wealth to 
members. Rings were formed, candidates were nominated and 
elected simply for their readiness to plunder the city. 

The Broadway franchise for only two miles was valued 
by the company, who thought they had secured it, at 
$1,500,000. Unseemly contests for possession of the streets 
occurred between rival companies. The defeated and disap- 
pointed parties appealed to the courts. It was then found that 
the city had not the legal right thus to give away to corpora- 
tions to use for private gain, the public streets purchased and 
graded loitli money obtained from the people hy taxation and assess- 
ment. In 1854, the Legislature, by an act that appeared to be 
for a different purpose, yet by a clause skilfully thrust into the 
third section, confirmed and made valid the grants theretofore 
obtained from the city. 

The courts having decided that the city officials could not 
donate to their friends the city streets and squares, the whole 
business of giving to these corporations the public property of the 
city was then transferred to Albany. The Legislature at once 
became surrounded and beseiged annually by an army, 
called the Railroad Lobby. Members were chosen for 
their subserviency to this interest. Such proceedings were 
had that street after street was given away, until, when 
on the point of donating the Broadway franchise, Mr. A. 
T. Stewart checked the evil by offering to pay to the city for this 
grant two millions of dollars. This was justice ; but there was 
no plunder either for the Lobby or the Legislators in this 
offer ; and the grant was refused. Finally, the demand of the 
citizens for protection against the rapacity of these corpora- 
tions was recognized, and the Twenty-third street franchise 
was sold by public auction. The extension of the Dry Dock, 



East Broadway and Battery Koad was granted on condition 
that Jive per cent, of the proceeds of the cars run thereon should he 
paid annually to the city. The word " net " having been in- 
serted before proceeds ; the company, though doing a kicrative 
business, paid nothing for five years, till overhauled by a mem- 
ber of this committee last spring, when they paid up, for 
the five years, the sums due the city. The extension of the 
Second Avenue Koad was granted last winter, on condition that 
they pay to the city the value of the franchise for the exten- 
sion. 

After a long struggle against the Lobby, the Reformers have 
at last got the principle of imyrnent to the city, for the franchises, 
recognised. It now remains to fix a just rule of value for 
franchises that may be hereafter granted. 

A franchise is worth whatever sum it will, under fair man- 
agement, pay seven per cent, upon, as a permanent investments 
The Statute Law and the course of business in our State fix this 
as the value of money, though it is often difficult to invest for 
long periods large sums upon real estate at this rate, and capi- 
talists are content with less. 

The elements of the calculations to determine the value of 
the franchise are as follows : 

First. — The actual cost of constructing and equipping a road 
ready for use. This includes — 

(a.) The track, (b.) The rolling stock, (c.) The depots and 
stables. 

Second. — The net annual earnings of the road, after pay- 
ing the usual repair- bills to keep up the track, rolhng stock, 
depots and stables. 

Third. — Deduct from the net annual earnings seven per cent, 
on the cost of the whole road, and the remainder will be 
the net earnings or value -per year of the fi-anchise. It wiU 
also be seven per cent, on the gross value of the franchise. 



6 

Fourth. — Capitalize this remainder at seven per cent., and it 
will give, in a ronud sum, the value of the franchise. 

The cost of converting a street into a double-track railroad, 
including all the materials and labor, was proved in the Second 
Avenue Extension case, bj the witnesses for the cit}^ — men of 
large experience in railroad building and connected with city 
roads — to be not over $25,000 per mile. The cost of rolling 
stock of the best quality Avas proved to be not over $1,000 per 
car and $175 per horse, and $50 per set for double car-harness. 

By the law of this State (Session Laws 1857, Chap. 536, 
§§ 24, 25, 26), every railroad corporation is required, under 
penalty of $250, to deliver to the assessors of each city or town 
a classified list of its real estate in said city or town, with the 
valuation thereof, which valuation is prmw facie evidence of 
the value thereof. 

It was proved by several witnesses that the valuation for 
purposes of taxation in this city is intended to be, and should 
be, if all are treated fairly, sixty 23er cent, of the cash or market 
value of the property. 

The valuation for assessment, unless the corporations, in their 
annual returns to the assessors, have deliberately swindled the 
city, which we do not presume, is sixty per cent, of the cash 
value of the real estate of each city railroad. 

Each road is required to make, under oath, each year, a re- 
turn to the State Engineer, stating, among other things — 

(a.) Number of miles of track, {h.) Number of cars, (c.) 
Number of horses, {d.) Number of passengers carried during 
the year, (e.) Gross earning. (/.) Operating expenses, repairs, 
taxes, &c. {g.) The net earnings. 

A digested statement of these sworn reports of eight city 
railroad companies, for the year ending Sept. 30th, 1871, and 
the value — if new and of the best quality — of everything each 
possessed at that date, appears in the following table, pre- 
pared by this committee, marked No. 1 : 



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8 

In the above table the real estate is valued at 66| per cent, 
above the sum on which the companies pay taxes, that is, if a 
company pays taxes on a real estate valuation of $G0,000, the 
same real estate is, in this table, put at $100,000 as its fair 
market value. 

The cars, horses, harness and track are all valued at the 
price of new, of the best quality. 

This makes the table more than just to the companies, as it 
puts gi'oss cost on which seven per cent, is to be allowed them 
out of the net profits, higher than it actually is, and hence 
makes the net earnings of the franchise, which determines the 
value of the franchise, less than it actually is. 

PUBLIC PEOPERTY DONATED OVER $10,000,000, 

This table shows, from the results of a year's business on 
eight roads, covering fifty miles of streets, that these eight 
roads, not reckoning their franchises, have actually invested in 
their property only $6,708,088 

while their annual net earnings are seven per cent, on 17,009,559 

In other words, it shows that their net earnings at present 
rates of fare are sufiicient to pay seven per cent, on actual cost 
of theu' property, and leave, as the annual earnings of the fran- 
chises, the sum of $721,103 

which is seven per cent, on a franchise valuation of $10,301,471 

This last sum is the actual income producing value of the prop- 
erty in the public streets donated to eight roads hy former City Gov- 
ernments and State Legislatures. 

VALUE OP FRANCHISE PEE MILE. 

The table shows further, from actual experiment on fifty 
miles of roads, that a city raih-oad franchise, well located, is 
worth on an average per year, per mile $14,546 

or, as a seven per cent, paying property, is worth per mile the 
capital sum of $207,806 



The railroad men, who were examined under oath to elicit 
these facts, expressed it as their judgment that it would be 
fair to donate half the value of the franchises to the capitalists 
who originate and build the roads. This is for the purpose of 
inducing them to put their capital into new roads as fast as the 
people may need them. 

On this basis of an equal division between the city and the 
capitalist, the city should receive, on an average, for the fran- 
chise of a city railroad, ^^e?^ mile, a capital sum of $103,903 

or an annual payment, -per mile, of $7,273.21 

But as the profits of a road and the value of the franchise 
depend, other things being equal, upon the number of jDassen- 
gers carried, a more just rule of valuation for franchises ivould 
he one based upon the number of passengers p^er year. 

WHAT SHOULD BE PAID TO THE CITY FOR A FEANCHISE. 

A generalization from the business of the eight roads shows 
that, at present rates of fare, a road can and ought to pay the 
city, for a franchise, that is, for the use of the streets, a quartei 
of a cent a passenger, or five per cent, of their gross receipts. 

The number of passengers carried by the eight roads for the 
year ending September 30, 1871, was 108,323,168 

The number of passengers carried for the year ending Sep- 
tember 30, 1872, was 115,515,695 

The increase of travel is over six and one-half fer cent, 'per year 

At a quarter of a cent a passenger, which is about five per 
cent, of the gross fares, these roads would have paid into the 
city treasury for the year 1871 $270,808 

or $5,380 per mile for their franchises. 

For the year 1872 they would have paid into the city trea- 
sury $288,789 

or $5,737 per mile for their franchises. 



10 

This sum, though at first k^ss than half tlie earnings of their 
franchises, would increase from year to year as the travel in- 
creased, and in the long run would amount to half of the earn- 
ings of the franchises, and so would be just to the city, and 
easy for the Companies to pay. 

WHAT PER CENT. ON COST ROADS NOW EARN NET. 

The gross earnings of the eight roads for the year 1871 
were $5,683,213 

After paying all expenses and repairs, the net earnings were 
for the same year $1,190,669 

which is tiveniy 'per cent, of the gross earnings, and is seventeen 
and tioo -thirds per cent, on the actual gross cost of the roads and all 
their appurtenances. 

If, now, they pay five per cent, of the gross earnings to the city 
for the use of the streets, these roads would still have left, to pay 
annual dividend on cost, fifteen per cent., or $893,002 of the 
gross earnings, which would be over thirteen per cent, on their 
whole cost of $6,708,088 

With such results as these, it is not strange that the stock of 
some of these roads that obtained their franchises for nothing 
should, even after frequent waterings, like the 3d avenue, still 
sell as high as 200 per cent. 

These roads, cd present rates of fare, can aford to run cars 
enough to furnish a seat to every passenger, and should be compelled 
by laio to do it. 

Profit to Corporators, over $10,000,000 

To one not initiated into the ways and means of getting the 
public property of the city for nothing, it may seem incredible 
that over $10,000,000 worth has been given to eight of these 
Corporations. 

And in this eight, the Fourth avenue road, perhaps the most 
flagrant case of them all, is not included, as the exact figures 
of that road could not be obtained. 



11 

How IT IS DONE. 

An originator of several street railroads and President of 
one, while a witness in a railroad matter, thus laid open the 
modus operandi of getting a franchise for nothing, and dividing 
the profits. 

(1.) A route is selected, and the cost of track, equipments, 
stables and depots, &c., is calculated. 

(2.) The net earnings are then estimated, and 7 per cent, 
on cost deducted ; the remainder is the earnings of the fran- 
chise, which capitalized at 7 per cent, gives the value of the 
franchise as a 7 per cent, property, and is the profit to hemadehy 
those loho obtain the charter. 

(3.) As soon as the Charter is obtained, stock and bonds are 
prepared to the amount of both the cost of the road and the esti- 
mated, value of the franchise, added together . 

The intention being to issue as much stock and bonds as the 
net earnings will float, that is, will pay 7 per cent. upon. 

(4.) Then a contract is made by the Company with some 
party to build and equip the road, stables, depots, &c., for the 
whole amount of the stock and bonds. 

(5.) But this party enters into a sub-contract to turn over to 
a confidential friend of the Corporators cdl the stock and bonds, 
except enough cd the market price to pay him the actual cost, with 
a fair profit on his work ; which actual cost is agreed upon 
beforehand. 

(6.) This confidential friend, on receiving back the surplus 
stock and bonds from the contractors, then divides it among 
the Corporators, 

This surplus, less what they may have paid out at Albany, 
is the net profit of the operation. 

The judgment of these gentlemen as to the value of a street 
railroad franchise has, heretofore been singularly correct, as is 
shown by Table No. 2, as follows : 



12 



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13 

In 1871, on the eight roads investigated by the 

Committee, they had issued of stocks $8,756,100 

Of bonds or debt.^ 6,881,341 

Total on which they estimated the roads would pay 

7 per cent $15,637,441 

Seven per cent, on this, which would 

make the stock par, is $1,094,620 

While the actual net earnings for 1871, 

were 1,190,669 

Or seven per cent, on $17,009,559 

Being, as already shown on 10,301,471 

more than the whole actual cost of the roads, and making 
the stocks, on the average, worth more than par. 

"With such a fund to influence the City Government and State 
Legislatures, is it not easy to see how certain members, while 
apparently serving the public for almost nothing, become sud- 
denly rich? And why, to them, a seat is so desirable? 

No matter how many Reform Legislatures we may elect, this 
corruption will continue until its source, the giving away of 
these franchises, is cut off. 

Table No. 2 shows the profit resulting to the Corporators 
on each road, and the average amount of it per mile on Charters 
for city roads, so long as the franchises are given away. 

The enormous proportions of this wrong to the city is evi- 
dent from a mere inspection of the nominal cost per mile of 
the different roads, and comparison of it with the actual cost. 

The Eighth avenue road, which, having been chiefly owned 
by one man, was built, and the accounts stated with some de- 
gree of honesty, has an average cost per mile of only $137,555 

While the Broadway and Seventh avenue road pretends, un- 
der oath, to have cost per mile $586,351 

While Table No. 2 shows that the actual average cost per 
mile of the eight roads, with all their equipments, comprising 
over fifty miles, is only • $132,833 

The obtaining of city railroad franchises without due com- 
pensation to the city for the use of the streets is the richest 
and safest mine that has been worked in this citv- 



14 

The injustice and wrong to the tax-payers is greater than in 
the cases of the Tammany Ring, for the city has no remedy. 
It must endure the loss of its property till the grant expires^ 
and even then, as last winter, in the case of the Fourth avenue 
grant, the owners may, with arguments accumulated from the 
profits of the former grant, obtain from the Legislature a new 
gift of the same. 

The absolute necessities of tlie City Treasury requires that no 
more of the city property should be given cncay. 

DUTY OF THE LEGISLATURE. 

In view of the above facts, the Reform Legislature now in 
session owe it to themselves and to the city to take care — 

(1.) That no increase is made in the fares ; 

(2.) That the present roads give amjyle accommodations to their 
passengers ; 

(3.) That no new franchise is granted unthout Just compensation 
to the city for the same. 

NO TAXErf PAID ON PROPERTY WORTH OVER $5,000,000. 

If the roads were liberal or even honest in paying their taxes 
and license-fees the case would not be so flagrant. 

But for the last four years they have annually escaped tax- 
ation on at least five millions of their net estate, while indivi- 
duals of moderate means, and who have received no gifts of 
public property, are taxed to the last dollar. Some pay no 
license fees at all on their cars, while the rest pay on only a 
part of their cars. 

TAXABLE ESTATE OF STREET RAILROADS. 

The net estate of a street railroad is what remains of its 
property after all debts to third parties are paid. 

It is what money would be left for the stockholders after 
paying all the debts. The regular market value of the stock is 
this sum. 

And whatever sum the stock of a company at the regular 
market rate for any year will produce is the net estate of that 
company for that year. On this they should pay taxes at the 
same rate as is paid by the great body of individual tax-payers. 
The following table (No. 3) shows the actual taxable estate of 
eight street railroads for each of the last four years : 



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16 



HOW TO DETERMIKE TAXjU3LE PEESONAL ESTATE. 

The real estate of these companies is assessed specifically as 
real estate, and by deducting the assessed value of the real 
estate of each company from the assessed value of their whole 
net taxable estate, as fixed by the market value of the capital 
stock, the remainder is tJie taxable personal estate. 

This is so simple a problem that there would seem to be no 
honest reason why, for the last fom- years, their property has 
been free of taxes. 



HOW MUCH OF THEIR ESTATE PAID NO TAXES. 

In 1869, with a taxable estate of $8,193,360 

They paid taxes on 36^ per cent., or onl}^ on 2,973,323 

Amount of property untaxed $5,220,037 

In 1870, with a taxable estate of $8,631,255 

They paid taxes on 33^ per cent., or only on 2,893,050 

Amount of property untaxed $5,738,215 

In 1871, with a taxable estate of $9,059,170 

They paid taxes on 30^ per cent., or only on 2,787,605 

Amount of property untaxed $6,271,565 

In 1872, with a taxable estate of $9,917,050 

They paid taxes on 35J per cent., or only on 3,487,233 

Amount of property untaxed $6,428,817 

Average percentage of their estates taxed for last four years 
less than 34 per cent., while during the same period the estates 
of individual tax-payers have had to pay on fi"om 60 per cent, 
to 70 per cent, of the value of their estates, being double the 
rate of these rich and favored corporations. 

Last winter, this committee, through the press, exposed in 
part the immunity from taxes enjoyed by these street railroads ; 
and their valuations were raised $859,688 over the year 1871, 
makiug an increase of revenue to the city treasury of. .$24,930. 

If, this year, their estates are assessed at the same rates as 
the great body of individual tax-payers, they wiU pay taxes on 

a valuation of at least $4,000,000 

more than for the year 1872, making an increase of the city's 
annual revenue from taxes, of at least $130,000. 

The following table, marked No. 4, prepared from the records 
in the ofiice of the Tax Commissioners, shows on what sums 
each of the eight roads has been taxed for the last four years : 



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18 

By comparing the estate of each road taxed in 1872 (see last 
cokimn of Table No. 4) with the actual taxable estate of each 
road for that year (see last column of Table No. 3) the following 
facts appear : 

The Second Avenue Railroad Company was assessed on less 
than 10 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Third Avenue Railroad Company was assessed on less 
than 25 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Sixth Avenue Railroad Company was assessed on less 
than 47 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Broadway and Seventh Avenue Railroad Company was 
assessed on less than 32 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Eighth Avenue Railroad Company was ass.essed on less 
than 46 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Dry Dock and East Broadway Railroad Company was 
assessed on less than 29 per cent, of its taxable estate. 

The Forty-second Street and Grand Street Ferry Railroad 
Company was assessed on less than 68 per cent. 

And the Bleecker Street and Fulton Ferry Road was as- 
sessed on 111 per cent, of its taxable estate ! 

The records of the tax-office show further, that in 1860 the 
Sixth Avenue R. R. Co. was assessed on $544,540 of personal 
estate, while, for the last four years, it has been assessed, on 
an average, for only $132,797 

In 1868 the Broadway and Seventh Aveniie R. R. Co. was 

assessed on $342,500 

of personal estate, while for the last three years its average as- 
sessment has been on onlj $166,783 

of personal estate. 

In 1858, the Eighth Avenue R. R. Co. was assessed on $603,085 
of personal estate, while for the last four years, its average 

assessment has been on only $371,621 

of personal estate. 

In 1855, the Second Avenue R. R. Co. was assessed 

on $217,250 

of personal estate, while, in the last four years, it has been as- 
sessed on no7ie. 

In 1858 the Third Avenue R. R. Co. was assessed on $809,225 
of personal estate, while for the last three years it has been 
assessed on none. 



19 

Here is a decrease in the taxes on the personal estate of 
these five favored corporations of 75 per cent., while the great 
mass of the people have had their taxes nearly doubled. 

As the law now stands, a railroad company may issue bonds 
at any rate it pleases, and then report them as outstanding debt, 
and so avoid taxation on its 'personal estate. 

As these bonds, when issued at low rates, may be taken pro 
rata, according to their stock, by the stockholders, and after- 
wards paid at par, and interest out of net earnings, they also 
afford a convenient way of concealing from the 'public the actual 
net profits of the roads, and afford a cover for a demand upon the 
Legislature for authority to raise their fares. 

A president of one company is said to have replied to a 
stockholder, who complained of no dividend on his stock, that 
without an}^ dividend on the stock, he was receiving 21 per 
cent, annually on his whole investment, by way of interest on 
bonds, distributed at a nominal price. 

In view of the above facts, your committee recommend to the 
Club, the passage of the following resolutions : 

Besolved, That the Legislature should authorize no rise of 
fares on the street railroads of this city, but should require 
them to give ample accommodations to their passengers. 

Besolved, That in all future gi'ants of franchises for surface 
street railroads in this city, the Legislature should require that 
the corporations receiving the same pay to the Commissioners 
of the Sinking Fund, as compensation to the city for the use of 
the streets, five per cent, on the gross receipts from fares. 

Besolved, That the estates of the street railroads should be 
valued for taxation and assessment at the same rate on market 
value that the estates of the great mass of the individual tax- 
payers are valued. 

New York, Jan'y 7, 1873. 

DEXTEK A. HAWKINS, 
Chairman of Committee. 
Charles Collins, 

Secretary. 



20 

After the applause which followed the reading of the foregoing report had subsided, Mr. 
Jackson S. Schult/. moved that the report be accepted, and the resolutions suggested in it 
adopted by the Club. Carried unanimously. The iisual annual report of the Committee on 
Political Eeform was then read. It was as follows : 

The Committee on Political Reform for the year ending January 9, 1873, make the follow- 
ing annual report. Numerous subj(H;ts in the administration of the City and State Govern- 
ments requiring reform were brought before this Committee. They investigated thoroughly 
three of them. 

First. — The appropriation of i)ublic money to sectarian institutions. 

/Second. — The abuses in the License and Permit Bureau of this City. 

Tliird. — Donation of_ public streets to private corporations, and the non-taxation of the 
same corporations. 

1. They made a report of sixteen pag(!S last February, showing that in this City over 
$750,000 annually of the piibllc money was given to sectarian institutions, and as our Govern- 
ment recognizes no State Church, but guarantees universal toleration in religion, they 
recommended that such ai^propriatious be stopped. The Club ai^proved of the recommenda- 
tion, advised an amendment to that effect to the then pending City Charter and to the State 
Constitution. 

Your Committee sent a delegation to Albany to carry out the views of the Club. Each 
member of the delegation gave his time and paid his own expenses. The recommendations 
were embodied in the then proposed City Charter, and a corresponding amendment to the 
State Constitution passed the Legislature by a large majority. As a further result, this class 
of approijriations by the City and State Governments to a great extent ceased. It only remains 
to take care that they are not renewed, till the amendment to the State Constitution becomes 
effective. That report of the Committee was extensively republished in full in newspapers and 
magazines, and given a very wide circulation. 

The reform initiated in our State was deemed of sufficient imi^ortance in other States to 
cause several of them to enact laws and pass amendments to their constitutions to secure the 
same desirable results. , 

2. Your Committee, during the Spring and Summer, had the License and Permit Biireaus 
of the City Government, under the late Mayor, investigated, and discovered that the fees were 
in part not collected at all, and of those collected no proper accounts were either keiit or 
rendered, and that from this money received, seventy to ninety yer cent, was deducted, under 
pretense of paying salaries to parties employed to receive the money. 

Measures were taien, through the Comptroller, to reform this branch of Cily administra- 
tion. In consequence of there being no meeting of the Club in the summer months no report 
could be made at the time, but the facts appeared in the public Press. 

3. The labors of the Committee in the matter of surface street railroads appear in the 
report on that subject just presented to the Club. The amount of money appropriated by the 

Club to the use of the Committee for the year is $1,500 00 

They have expended of this stim, wholly for printing and copying only 520 95 

Leaving a balance in the treasury to the credit of the Committee of $979 05 

The other expenses of the Committee, amounting to several thousand dollars, have been 
paid either by the menxbere of the Committee themselves, or by money contributed by friends- 
of reform who desired the work to go forward with vigor. 

DEXTER A. HAWKINS, 
Charles Collins, Chairman of Commitiee. 

Secretary. 



POLITICAL REFORM! 



THE PERMIT BUREAU. 



How Mayor Hall Spends $2,842 to Collect Six Dollars. 



The Pay-RoUs of the Mayor's Office Examined— Twenty-two Men 
Paid for Doing the Work of Six— Slianielnl Corruption ! 



COISrTK.-A.ST. 



The Permit Bureau of the New York City Government is under 
the especial control of the Mayor, and is a perfect illustration of 
the Tammany system of collecting and accounting for the revenue. 
The amount paid for permits in this city, under any honest man- 
agement, cannot be less than $100,000 a year. Yet, in 186G, 
the return was $23,077.72; in ISTO, the amount was only 
$3,749.95, and in 1871, it was only $11,924:.92. No accounts 
are rendered by the Mayor or his bureau showing the items of 
receipts. No deposits of the money received are made into the 
City Treasury until the end of the year. The Mayor is supposed 
to keep it in his private pocket for the whole twelve months, and 
then what there is left of it, if anything, is sent to the City 
Treasury. Generally only two or three clerks are visible in the 
Permit Bureau, and except for about one month in the year they 
seem to have very little, if anything, to do. What became of the 
large sums of money in the course of the year paid for permits 
remained one of the Tammany mysteries until a few days ago, 
when Mayor Hall's private pay-roll for his Permit Bureau was 
discovered. The following verbatim extracts from it give a fair 
idea of the Tammany system of collecting and using the people's 
money before it got into the treasury. What was done with it, 
afteriuard the exposures of last year, showing a clear stealage by 
them of $20,000,000, may help one to surmise : 



22 



PERMIT BUREAU — ilONTHLT RECEIPTS AND EXPENDITURES 

FOR THE TEAR 1871. 

Months. Receipts. Expenses. 

January $4i7 OO $3,042 Gt 

February 104 00 2,840 GG 

March 145 00 2,843 70 

April 6 00 2,842 G4 

May 30,200 00 2,743 GG 

June 3,521 00 2,953 05 

July 2,749 00 2,766 GG 

August 2,737 00 2,866 66 

September 1,900 00 2,866 70 

October 1,388 00 2,899 97 

November 289 00 1,933 33 

December 324 00 1,378 43 

Total $43,990 00 $31,978 28 

Deduct for permits during the year and fees returned 87 00 

$43,903 00 

Paid into the City Treasury to John J. Bradley, City Chamberlain, 

Dec. 30. 1871 $11,924 9'3 

$43,903 00 

From tliis table it api)ears that the expenses of receiving money 
under the Tammany regime at the City Hall, is seventy-three per 
cent, of the money received in 1871. Or, if the previous year is 
taken, 1870, when $38,646 is reported as received, and the expense 
reported at 134,896.05, the cost of receiving money at the City 
Hall by the Tammany Government in 1870 was ninety per cent. 
of the amount received. Under such management it is not strange 
that the debt of the city is now over $100,000,000, aud the people 
are oppressed with city and County taxes and assessments. 

SPENDING NEARLY 83,000 TO COLLECT $6. 

The most remarkable feature of the taljle is that in the month 
of April, 1871, the expense of receiving $6 was $2,842.64! In 
the month of March, in the same year, the Tammany receivers of 
money seemed to have been more energetic, and the expenses of 
receiving $145 in that month was only $2,843.70! In the 
month of February, the expense of receiving $194 ^vas $2,- 
840.66 ! Truly it is a very expensive business to the people to 
have Tammany office-holders receiving money for the City Treas- 
ury. Curiosity led to a further investigation to discover the 
names of the efficient employes of Tammany in 1871, who were 
able, l)y diligent effort, to receive $6 at an expense to the city of 
$2,842.62- The following is a correct copy of Mayor Hall's 
Tammany pay-roll for the Permit Bureau until the November 
election in 1871, with the monthly salaries of each one of these 
Tammany office-holders : 



23 

IWENTY-TWO MEN" TO DO THE WORK OF SIX. 

Names. Salary per month. 

George W. Morton, Register |46G 6G 

PhiliiJ L. Hoffman, Deputy Kegister 416 66 

George W. Bhint, Clerk 208 33 

F. W. Hubbell, General Clerk 126 00 

William Seaman, General Clerk 100 00 

John Waters, General Clerk 100 00 

L. T. Tingle General Clerk 83 33 

Henry W. Shoridan, General Clerk 26 00 

Oscar D. Hall, Inspector 183 33 

William A. Collins, Inspector 150 00 

John Bo we. Inspector 100 00 

Thomas Rowan, Inspector 100 00 

John Will, Inspector 100 00 

Kobert Gamble, Inspector 100 00 

Philip N. Ganlon, Inspector.... ICO 00 

John H. Whitmore, Inspector 100 00 

James F. Carey, Inspector 100 00 

William Hoffman, Inspector 100 09 

Ernast A. Bastianelli, Inspector 100 00 

Francis Sheridan, Inspector 100 00 

Matthew Murray, Inspector 83 33 

Thomas Will, Messenger 100 00 

Total $3,04:3 6* 

EFFECT OF A EEFORM VICTORY AT THE POLLS. 

The effect of the defeat of Tammany last ISTovember at the 
ballot-box so startled the Tammany managers that the very next 
month they cnt down the number of emyloyes in the Permit 
Bureau for that month from twenty-two to six, making a reduc- 
tion of sixteen, or over seventy per cent. This was a confession 
that when they did not fear the people, they employed nearly four 
times the number of officers the public service required, and thus, 
if unrestrained, would make the expenses of the Administration 
nearly four times what, under an honest Administration, they 
should be. 

AFRAID OF EXPOSURE — DISCHARGING SINECURISTS. 

The followiug is the pay-roll for December, 1871, the month 
after election. Compare it with the preceding list of employes : 

Pat-roll for December, 1871. 

George W. Morton, Register - . . $466 67 

Philip L. Hoffman, Deputy 416 67 

Joseph W. Hubbell, Cleik .. 125 00 

Henry W. Sheridan, Clerk 83 34 

William A. Collins, Inspector 150 00 

PhiUpN. Ganlon. Inspector 100 00 

Total $1,34:1 66 

WHAT THE TAMMANY GREELEYITES WANT. 

The Tammany Clreeleyites wish to apply this system to_ the 
New York Custoin-House and to the internal revenue collections. 
The Tammany Party, seeing that the people were fully determined 
to put an end to their political regime next November, after cast- 



24 



Ztfr assistance to enable them to hold on to the City and 

State Governmens for another tw6 years, Avith a possible chance 

no ^I'^^T'"'^ f '^'' ^"'^^ ^^^''' Gorernment, and ha? n| 
no pi obabk hope of success under their own flag and the leaders 
heretofore identified with them, hare persuaded" Horace Greeley 
to jom them as as standard-bearer. What the terms of the com^ 
pact between hem ai^Jias not yet been disclosed, but it is veTy 
easy to infer them Mr. Greeley, witli the liope of bein<. President 
gves Tammany the whole weight of his inflience ancl tlat of a 1 
his followers Tammany, in return, tliink they have a certa ntv 
of securing, first, the City and County Government ami Trea ury 

Tr'easurv^fort/''' ".T ' ^'^°"'^^^' ^'''' '''-'' Government S 
Ireasuiy for the next two years ; and, if bv any possible streak of 
luck, or negligence of tlie people they should get Greeev into the 
Presjde.itial chair, they could then at once apply the pr^ndple of 
Halls Permit Bureau to the New York Cu tU-House, and the 
SlOOOon'or'^ revenue system of collections and eas^'y ^ock 
Slop 000 000 a year of the people's money. As the credit of the 
United States, under Eepul^licin administration has 1 en raised 
W forty per cent, to above par, and the bonds of the Unite 
thirt%if;w ';"'?'' Buchanan, were bid for by capitally" at 
ier Pptf ^f cent, per annum, now are rapidly taken at five 
per cent they could issue unlimited millions of Federal bond« 
?heirr :^rnf '^"ir?"''^^ '^; "^^^^^ "^^ ''^^ deficiencies caused bv 
s cce of Ihf T ''^'"« r'' :'''.''''''■ T^^^ ^-^^"It' "^ case of the 
success of the Tammany Greeleyites, is certainly very attractive 
t^o every Tweed Hall, Sweeny and Connolly in the w^iole party 
But what would be the condition of the great body o he people' 
office ft r'^'V' ^'' '''}'' 'r!. '^'' population^ who l/old^no 
vfvnJl^ I ""T' '"^ \ ^^'^ "^''^ contemplation of the 

1 emit Bureau for the month of April last year, when «fte was 

[o'sXfr' $2'S42.6f -^1-'"^^^ "' -ceivin'g it,' .vill be fnoiigh 
to sati!.;y every one ol the ruinous consequences of continuino- hi 
power m this City or State, the Tammany Greeleyite Party o"r of 
permitting tliem for one single day, much less for fou vlli^J to 
have control of the National Administratiom ' ' 

A COXTRAST-ECOXOMY OF THE GEXERAL GOYERXMENT. 

of Til!f f"'?"f a/ ^■'^y ''f "^^'^'^^ ^"^" Customs at the Custom-House 

was ^J 48,981 < .b 93. 1 lie expense of receiving this, under Grant's 
Pepubhcan Administration, .as 1 547-1000 per cent., or, in r^mc 
numbers, one and one-half per cent. Contrast this with the 
ZZW'^ "'"i .T^''"'"' f ^^'' Tammany Permit Bureau for the 
bnrl.,. f^:f?^i *^^%^^eventy-tliree per cent, expenses of the same 
bureau for 1871, and we get reliable facts from which to make the 
ratio of increase of our national expenses and debt, and decrease 
nLn\ "^^t'O"^! ^■e^.-e/iue, should the Greeley-Tammanvite Partv 
cany the next Presidential election. We wish every voter would 
leflect upon these figures m determinino- jiow to cast his vote 

New YoiS'l,f8^^'''^'^'' ^^^^-''^^^^ ^^''^"^^'^^^^- 



DOCUMENT No. 11, 



STATE COUNCIL OF POLITICAL REFOEM. 



Cherish, Protect and Preserve the Free Common Schools. 



SECTARIAN APPROPRIATIONS 

OF 

Public Money and Public Property, 

IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 



Over $2,273,231 taken from the Treasury in 
1869, 1870 and 1871. 



Oae Sect grets, in Cash, .... $1,915,456 92 

Besides Public Land, . . . 3,500,000 00 

Total to a Single Sect, .... $5,415,456 92 



REPORT OF COMMITTEE 

ON 

Endowment and Support by the State of Sectarian or 

Denominational Schools and Institutions 

in the City of New York, made 

March 6th, 1872. 



-NEW YORK: 

irOariNG POST STEAM PRESSES, 41 NASSAU STREin. COE. LIBERTY. 

]S72. 



At a recukr meeting of the Ifew York State Council of Political Reform held 
intLr rtoms, 480 Broadway, City of Albany, March 5 and 6, 187 the Com- 
^ttee on the Appropriation of Public Money or Public Property for the Endow- 
^nt or Support of sLtarian Institutions, presented the following Report, covering 
^he City and County of New York, for the years 1869, 1870, ^&'\- 

The Committee of the State Council of Political Reform upon the Appropriation 

f?^wr.V?^m.vnnl Public Property to Sectarian or Dcnominatu.nal Institutions 

Cr -St'at t Lnist niee\in.\hey appointed D.xx.a A- Hawkxxs, Es, o 

srYork City, ^ f "— ^^ijiS.^^ ^ mfaSSt h ii^s:^;;^!^' 

County of New York, for the ye^ 18b9 870 and 18 .1 n ^^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^ 

from the City Comptroller, and find the following additional sums -. 

^ ^. -Kr ic^o - - $151,063 IG 

In the Year 18C>9, - - -h » 

Ofwhich the Institution of ^^^t/^^ 

the Sisters of Mercy rcc'd $105,000^00 
Other institutions of same 

religious sect, - ^t>, 1^1> U^ 

Total additional to one ^ $141,120 00 

sect alone, - - '*' U 04.*? 1 6 

All other sects, onl^^ ^'^^^ 250,919 31 

In the Year 1870, - " ^"' ' 

Ofwhich Foundling Asylum 
ofthe Sisters of Charity 
rec'd - - - $100,000 00 
N. Y. Catholic Protectory, 50,000 00 
Other institutions of same ^^_^^ ,. 
relii;:ious sect, - 96, i >>^> ^^4: 

Total 'additional to one ^^^ ^^^ ^^ 

sect alone, - - ^1 <»'l ii'i <»0 

All other sects togethcn-, only 10,10^ . 139,546 77 

In the Year 1871, - - 

Of which N. Y. Catholic 

Protectory received t»X,J<»> w 

Other institutions of the ^ 

same religious sect, tj^,--U uv 
Total addditional to one ^^^ ^^ 

sect alone, - - «''i'v? 77 ■ 

All other sects together, only o,o._».> ^^ 

Total additional sums for the three years, - 7i>V702 15 

Amount stated in report of sub-committee, - - m., * ^^y, » 

Total of public money taken from the treasury 

in last three years and given to sectarian ^ ^ ^ ^^ 

institutions intheCityofNew York alone - ^^{^-,- ^.^-^ 

Of this sum one sect alone receives, ^'^%p'l*t'4l ^7 

All other sects together, only - ^o ^ , < < -> -* < 

The institutions are nearly all specifie^ in tbe^oUo^vii^g report TL^^^^^^^^ 
money ; 1st. from the City Treasury ; 'id, from ^^"^^ Comtj tiei.v^rj aua ^^ 

Ueasury. The Secretary of toe Commissioners of Chanties nl^^^.^^^^^ ^^ ^^_^ k^^^.^ 

turo in February, 1871. refers very trut . y ,^„*^^„^,^t'pp.rti«^7/-o»« the public treasury so 

Schools of the Citi, of New York, caused by building up ""'^.f"/^'"',;' ' ''•^ 

Se a number of rival sectarian schools. (See Report pp. 09 & 100. _ 

On motion of Mr. W. L. Woollktt, the following resolution was unanimously 

'1^:^^Z:L.. .f toe State -un.l^Poim^l ^m ^.^re.^^^ 

lication through the pre.s, and that the remedies for thx.no^^glsanJH^ ^^^ ^^ 1^. 

said report, are approved and most respectfully urged upon tne coubuiei 

ture and of Congress. „ \URICE E. "STELE, Chairman- 

Albany, March 6, 1872. mAbivi^i:. 

William A. McKisnet, Recording Secretary. 



The following is the Keport of the sub-committee referred to 
above. It was made first to the Union League Club of New 
York, and they passed unanimously the following resolution : 

Whereas, Tiie Constitution of the United States prohibiting Congress from making 
any law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof was intended to secure a perfect toleration and entire freedom of religious 
belief and action'; and inasmuch as any appropriation of property and money to 
sectarian uses, or exemptions from general public contributions, involves the danger 
of discriminations forbidden by the Constitution ; therefore 

Resolved, That the Legislature of this State be earnestly requested not to ad- 
journ until they shall have enacted a law prohibiting such appropriations or ex- 
emptions, direct or indirect, to or in favor of any religious sect or denomination of 
any creed or persuasion whatever. 



Nearly $2,000,000 from the Treasury of the City of NeWi York, in 
Three Tears, 1S69, 1870, 1871, 



A SINGLE SECT GETS $1,396,388.51 in cash, in 
adchtion to laro-e OTauts of laud. 



The Standing Committee on Political Reform of the Union 
League Club, on February 22d, 1872, made the following 
Eeport upon the diversion of Public Money and Public Land 
of the City from the legitimate objects of Political Government 
to Sectarian purposes. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE CONSTITUTION OPPOSED TO SECTARL\N 
APPROPRIATIONS. 

The entire separation of Church and State, the perfect free- 
dom of each citizen to worship God according to the dictates of 
his own conscience ; his right to have any religion he chooses, 
or none at all if he prefers, are in the United States axioms of 
government. 

This spirit pervades the whole National Constitution ; but 
yet to prevent the possibility of any sect or combination of 
sects, from imposing or even attempting to impose a State 
Church upon iis, the first amendment to the Constitution, made 
in this city, March 4th, 1789, declared that, 

" Congress shall make no laio respecting an establishment of re- 
ligion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" 

The Constitution of the State of New York goes still further. 
It says: (Art. 1, Sec. 3.) 

The free exercise and enjoyment of religious i^rofession and 



" ^vorsldp without discrimination or preference, shall forever he 
" alloived in this State to all mankind." 

EACH SECT OPPOSED TO TAXATION TO SUPPORT OTHEE SECTS. 

Our forefathers in England and France did not enjoy freedom 
of religious profession and worship, and were taxed to support 
a Church they did not attend and in which they did not be- 
lieve. 

To escape this oppression and isijustice they came to 
America, 

The great grievance of the Irish in Ireland for the last half 
century has been, that they were taxed to support a religious 
sect, the '' Church of England," whose creed they rejected ; 
hence the Irish and their clergy have emigrated in milHons to 
our free land, where both the State and the National Constitu- 
tion forbids such an unchristian practice. 

We all agree upon the general principle of absolute freedom 
in matters of religion and worship, and the injustice of taxing 
citizens of one faith to support or propagate the peculiar tenets 
and doctrines of those of another and different faith ; yet so 
great are the charms of gold that even the most devout sects in 
our city caiinot always resist the temptation to grab public 
money and pubHc property whenever opportunity offers. 

A late writer estimates the number of religious sects in this 
country at two Imndred. 

PUBLIC LAXD AXD MONET GIVEN TO ONE SECT 

ALONE, $4,896,388.51. 

A single one of these during the last three years, by allying 
itself with the late Tammany Eing, has drawn from the pubhc 
treasury of the city and county of New York, in cash, for the 
support of its convents, churches, cathedrals, church schools 
and asylums, the enormous sum of $1,396,388.51. 

This same sect many years ago obtained a lease granted by 
the city for a nominal rent, of the whole block of ground ex- 
tending froni 5th to 4th avenues, and from 50th to 51st streets; 
and then in 1852 it induced the city for the sum of $83.33 to 
execute to it a release of the block ; thus divesting the city's 
title and gi\ang this sect an absolute title in fee simple to the 



whole block. A few years afterwards it charged the city twenty- 
four thousand dollars ($24,000) for permission to extend Macli- 
son avenue across this block, making it two blocks ; and re- 
ceived the money from the city treasury. Not content with 
this, it refused to pay the assessment for enhanced value to the 
lots caused by this opening of the avenue, but drew from the 
city treasury $8,928.84 to pay that. 

A moderate estimate of the present value of these two blocks 
of ground thus obtained for nothing is $1,500,000. Upon the 
Fifth avenue block this sect is now building a new cathedral ; 
upon the Madison avenue block they have erected a chapel. 

This same sect, by two leases, one made in 1846, the other in 
1857, obtained from the city at the rent of only two dollars a 
year, the whole block adjoining the above, and extending from 
Fifth to Fourth avenues, and from 51st to 52d streets. The 
same extension of Madison avenue made two blocks of this 
also ; and upon each is now erected a building used for one of 
the asylums owned by this sect. 

These two blocks of ground thus obtained from the city 
for nothing are worth another million and a half dollars 
($1,500,000.) 

In 1866, the Archbishop of this sect, for one dollar a year, 
acquired from the city for the Sisters of Mercy, half a block 
of ground on. Madison avenue between 81st and 82d streets, 
estimated to be now worth two hundred thousand dollars 
($200,000.) 

In 1870, for one dollar a year, he received a grant from the 
city for the Sisters of Charity, of a whole block of ground on 
Lexington avenue, between 68th and 69th streets, estimated to 
be worth now three hundred thousand dollars ($300,000.) 

This single sect has thus in a short time become possessed 
of real estate of the city to the value of $3,500,000 ; and 
making, with the money received from the public treasury of 
the city and county within the last three years, $1,396,388.51, 
the munificent sum of $4,896,388.51. No other city in the 
world has, in so short a time, contributed so much toward prac- 
tically founding a State Church. With such a facility for ac- 
quiring both the public land and the pubhc money, it will soon, 
if not restrained by law, control the city as completely as it has 
for centuries Mexico and Spain. 



Otlier sects are taking the disease, and beginning to feel an 
Helling for the city's laud. Tlie Baptists, in December, 1870, 
yielded to the temptation, and for one dollar a year received 
(10) lots of land between Lexington and Fourth avenues and 
67th and G8th streets. These are estimated to be worth one 
hundred thousand doUars ($100,000). 

EESTRAINT OF JAW REQUIRED TO SAVE THE I'UBLIC LAND AND 
MONEY FROM TOTAL ABSOEBTION. 

At one period in England one sect had acquired nearly a 
third of the land of the kingdom ; and Blackstone says that 
but for the statutes of mortmain, ecclesiastical corporations 
would soon have engulphed the whole real estate of Tiingland. 
The priests were so skilful in devising schemes to avoid these 
statutes that it took nearly four centuries to perfect them suf- 
ficiently to afford protection against the rapacity of the church. 

If each sect in this city was treated the same as the most 
favored one, all the public land of the city would soon be con- 
veyed to them, and the whole income from public taxes would 
be applied to sectarian uses. 

This whole policy is wrong, and is admitted to be so, by 
the best men in aU the sects, and is not American ; 

PRETENCE — CHARITY ; REALITY — HYPOCRISY. 

Their pretence or excuse for plundering the pubhc treasury 
is that they use the money either for charity or education. 

Charity is the duty of all, and the highest Christian virtue ; 
but charity means to give away one's own money ; not the 
money of another taken without his consent. 

The sectarian charities in this city proceed as follows : _ 

A few good peojile organize within their church a charitable 
institution, to be owned and managed by parties of their own 
faith. This is right ; but as soon as the Charity begins to cost 
money and need land, they violate the tenth commandment, 
and covet the goods and lands of the public. 

They obtain from the City — first a grant of land for a build- 
ing site — second, money from the City Treasury to erect the 
building, and third, an annual subsidy from the City Treasury 
to support the inmates. 

This is spending, not their ovm money but other people's, 
and without their consent. On the part of tlie managing sect, 
it is not charity but hy]iocrisy. 

The duty of 'taking care of the poor and the fatherless imder 
our benign government is assumed by the pubUc. Munificent 
provision is made for them. 



In New York, the buildings are palatial and healthful, all 
sects have equal rights therein, and special favors are shown to 
none. If any sect is not satisfied with this, it is at perfect 
liberty to establish and support its own private charities and 
manage them in its own way, but it should be at its own cost ; 
not at the expense of the public treasury. 

UPON" PllINCIPLE XOT A DOLLAli OF PUBLIC MONEY CAN" BE APPRO- 
PRIATED TO A SECTARIAN INSTITUTION. 

Now, however excellent the sectarian charities may be, the 
mere fact that they are sectarian must uj^on j^rinciple under 
our Government exclude them wholly from the public treasury. 
The slightest deviation from this rule admits the principle of a 
State Church. It is permitting the thin end of the wedge to 
enter that in time will be driven home by some powerful sect, 
and fix upon us all the evils of a State Behgion. 

THE OTHER PRETENSE — EDUCA.TI0N"; REALITY — INCREASE OF 
THEIR OWN SECT. 

In our country, where every citizen has a voice in the gov- 
ernment, self-preservation requires the civil power to take care 
that education is universal. Hence the American doctrine, 
that the property of the State shall pay the cost of educating 
the youth of the State. The method adopted is the sj^stem of 
free Common Schools. They are supported at public expense 
in every locality where there are children of the school-age. 
The civil authorities prescribe a course of study and discipline 
free from sectarian bias, so that the youth of all sects may 
meet on this neutral ground, and qualify themselves for useful 
citizens. 

N"0 N"EED OF SECTARIAN SCHOOLS. 

^ In the city of New York the public school-houses are educa- 
tional palaces ; large, comfortable, healthful, well provided 
with apparatus, teachers, and text-books ; judiciously near 
to the homes of the children, and with room for all. 

The parent has only to deliver his child, washed and clothed, 
at the friendly door of the school-house, and he has everything 
necessary to enable him to acquire a good common school 
education furnished him free of cost. 

The child of the poorest laborer and that of the richest mer- 
chant stand upon the same level in this great and beneficent 
republican nursery. Our Common Schools moM excellent citi- 
zens of a free and tolerant Bepnhlic, and furnish every thing the 
sectarian schools do, except the single item of sectarian religious 
instrndion. This should be received in the family or in the 
church of the sect ; not in a school supported by j)ublic money. 



WHY WAR IS MADE ON" THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 

But a single sect is taught by its head, a foreign and despotic 
ecclesiastical prince, that the civil authorities in a Jiepuhlic have 
not the right to control and direct the course of study and the choice 
and appointment of teachers in the schools open alike to the youth of 
all classes, but that this right belongs to the chnir'h. Hence this 
sect makes war upon our public schools ; persuades its children 
to leave them ; sets up an opposition school, wherever it has a 
church, a7id admits t /tat it does tJds solely for the pmpose of in- 
doctrinating the young mind loith its peculiar sectarian tenets and 
observances. 

They then demand, and for the last three years have re- 
ceived, money from the public treasury to pay the expense of 
thus destroying the public schools and building up their sect. 

Many of their school-rooms are damp basements of churches ; 
so dark that gas has to be used on the brio-htest day. 

THE STATE A BETTER EDUCATOR THAN THE CHURCH. 

In no country where the education of the 3^outh has been, 
left to the church, has it been as well, or as generally, or tlior- 
ouglily performed, as when this duty has been assumed by the 
civil authorities. 

Italy, Spain and Mexico, are illustrations of the clerical sys- 
tem, and Germany and the States of our country, of the lay 
or civil system. 

Strictly speaking, in a country where the organic law, like 
ours, proclaims absolute freedom of religion, we have no right 
to appropriate any of the public money or land to sectarian 
schools. The legislation that has heretofore permitted it is the 
entering loedge of a determineel effort to destroy our System of Free 
Common Schools, and upon its ruins to build iqj a State Church 
and pmt the whole subject of education under the control of religious 
sects. 

However excellent a school may be, the mere fact that the 
course of stud}' and choice of teachers are not under the con- 
trol of tho public school authorities, but are under the direction 
of a sect or sects, should, of itself alone, wholly exclude it 
from the public treasuiy. Let the same authority sujjport it' 
that contr()ls and manages it. 

Every child is provided for, and liberally pro^dded for, in the 
free public schools. If any sect desires its children to leave 
the pmblic conveyance on the road to knowledge, and take a 
private sectarian coach, they cannot honestly object to paying 
the cost of this sectarian coach themselves. 

The tables below, forming part of this report, and which 
we hope every citizen will scrutinize, show that a church in 
this city that counts its blocks of houses and stores by miles, 



9 

and their value at millions, all paying to it rent, yet, hat in 
hand, knocks at the door of the city treasury annually for a 
few dollars in aid of its two charity schools. That church could 
well afford to support twenty such charity schools out of its 
own treasury. 

We have brought forward these alarming facts in no spirit of 
hostility to true rehgion, nor to any church, or political party 
as such, but exclusively in the character of American citizens, 
and we call upon our fellow-citizens, irrespective of sect or 
party, to oppose, in all lawful ways, taxation, or appropriation 
of pubHc monej' or public land for sectarian purposes. 

SECTAKIAX \PPKOPRIATIONS UXCONSTITUTFON'AL. 

Every dollar of public money or public land appropriated to 
a sectarian institution is showing a ^'■discrimination or prefer- 
ence" for that sect. The Constitution of the State of New 
York forbids "discrimination or preference" in rehgion and 
worship ; it protects all, but allows no favors to one over 
another. 

THE REMEDY. 

(1.) The Legislature is about to give us a new city Charter. 
We ask them to put in it a clause prohibiting the city govern- 
ment from giving or granting public money or public property 
to, or in aid of sectarian institutions ; and to make the pro- 
hibition so clear and explicit that no corruption or ingenuity 
can evade or get around it. This will at once stop the evil in 
this city. 

\ (2.) We ask the Legislature to amend the State Constitution 
in like manner, so as to impose a similar prohibition upon the 
State Government, and all County, City and Town Govern- 
ments within the State. This will require three years, as the 
Amendment must pass two successive Legislatures and then 
be sulimitted to the people for ratification. Nothing but a 
Constitutional prohibition can effect a permanent cure of the 
evil. 

(3.) We suggest to Congress whether a similar amendment 
should not be made to the Constitution of the United States, 
so as to preserve effectually and affirmatively in the whole 
country freedom and toleration in religion and worship, and to 
prohibit forever any sect in the whole land fi'om building itself 
U13 at the cost of the public treasury or pubhc property. 

The true interests of Religion as well as of the State seem 
ahke to require this. 

DEXTER A. HAWIONS, 
Chairman of Committee on Political Reform. 



Charles Collins, Secretary. 
3 



11' 

Nearly $2,000,000 of the Moxey raised by Taxes 
abstracted from the public treasury of the city 
AND County of New York, in the last three years 

ALONE, FOR SECTARIAN USES. — A SiNGLE SeCT GETS 

$1,396,388.51, besides a large slice of the City's 
Real Estate. 



Roman Catholic. .. $510,071 82 

Convent of the Sacred Heart ,$10,000 00 

Charity week-day school Academy 

of Sacred Heart 4,000 00 

House of the Good Sheoherd 25,000 00 

" 15,000 00 

House of Mercy, Bloomingdale . . . 6,000 00 

Sisters of Mercy - • 457 00 

" St. Dominic 10,000 00 

" •' " 106 20 

" " " Asylum 5,000 00 

Church of Dominican Fathers 2,774 73 

Dominican Church, Lexington Av. 3,500 00 
School of St. Nicholas, order of St. 

Dominic 6,800 00 

St. Nicholas, School 5,000 CO 

Church 364 GO 

St Patrick's Orphan Asylum 8,153 44 

Catliedral 8,928 84 

School 8,000 00 

" Orphan Asylum, Cor. 

Mott and Prince sts 5,000 00 

St. Bridget's School 28,540 00 

Church 5,000 00 

Sister Helena 4,317 85 

Sisters of St. Joseph 5,000 00 

St. Joseph's Church 2,071 9 1 

Orphan Asylum 5,000 00 

" Parish School, Man- 

hattanville 2,000 00 

Parochial Male School 3,180 00 

Female " 3,410 00 

St. Teresa's School 7,730 00 

Church 640 00 

School of St. Teresa's Chapel 5,000 00 

In aid of School attached to St. 

Teresa's Church 5,000 00 

St Ann's Parochial School 1,500 00 

Church, 8th street 208 40 

St. Peter's Free School 5,000 00 

German American School, St. 

Peter's Church • 1,500 00 

German American Free School. . . 14,000 00 



464,681 05 421,625 64 



25,000 00 



6,0U0 00 



2,774 73 
3,500 00 



11,700 00 



8,928 84 



13,000 00 



5,000 00 
3,199 69 
5,000 00 

2,000 00 
3,042 00 
2,574 00 
3,825 00 
640 00 



1,500 00 

580 40 

4,500 00 



2,496 00 



2,170 00 
5,322 22 



6,000 00 



7,000 00 



13,972 00 



5,000 00 

5,'768 00 

868 00 

6,860 00 



3,920 00 
1,384 53 
4,599 00 



1,960 00 



11 



186 9. 



Roman Catholic. . . $510,071 82 



St. Lawrence Clmrch S 

" Parish School 

St. Mary's School 

" Church, Grand street. . 

Sisters of Charity, St. Mary's Ch'ch 

School of the Most Holy Redeemer 

St.Francis' Female Parochial School 

Male 

" Hospital 

St. Michael's Parochial Scliool... . 
" Church, Aid of School 

attached to 

School 

St. Gabriel's " 

Churcli of Transfiguration 

Transfiguration Free School 

St. James' Parochial Male School . . 
" " Female " . . 

" Church 

School of Our Lady of Sorrow. . . . 
St. Columba Charity and Week-day 

school 

Church of the Holy Innocents. , . . 

St. Andrew's Church 

Church of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion 

School of the Immaculate Concep- 
tion 

Church of St. Paul the Apostle. . . 
Free School of St. Vincent de Paul 
German American School, 19th 

Ward 

Church of St. Boniface 

St. John the Evangelist Free School 

for Girls , 

Parish School Church of the Na- 
tivity 

Eomau Catholic Church, 2d ave., 

2d and 3d sts 

Church of the Holy Cross 

Parochial School Church of the 

Holy Cross 

Church of Holy Name or St. Mat- 
thew 

Church of the Assumption 

" " St. John the Baptist. . . 

St. Vincent's Hospital 

" R. C. Orphan Asylum 

N. Y. Catholic Protectory 

St. Stephen's Orphan House 



Richard Burtsell, to pay taxes lots 
22d St., purchased for Church 
property 



1,500 00 

5,000 00 

20,000 00 

200 00 

70 00 

11.000 00 

4,250 00 

3,'750 00 

5,000 00 

2,500 00 

5,000 00 

5,000 00 

11,830 00 

387 75 

11,500 00 

6,000 00 

7,000 00 

800 00 

8,000 00 

6,120 00 

562 25 

1,007 01 

5,000 00 

10,000 00 
5.004 8-2 
2,500 00 

3,150 00 

965 70 

2,140 00 

639 60 

645 45 
2,123 75 

1,272 00 

463 12 

459 13 

533 31 

10,000 00 

15,000 00 

98,009 36 

6,000 00 

3,000 00 



505 40 



421,625 64 




10,000 00 
2,000 00 



11,500 00 
6,9ii0 00 
5,900 00 



7,500 00 

5,750 00 

562 25 
1,007 01 

182 43 

10,750 00 
4,999 82 
2,700 00 

2,700 00 



2,500 00 



6,441 60 



459 13 

502 00 
10,000 00 



114,252 92 



9,800 00 



6,000 00 
3,556 00 



11,550 00 



11,340 00 
9,618 00 



4,200 00 



6,510 00 



11,354 00 



1,428 00 



2,240 00 



6,000 00 



178,856 43 



12 



18 6 9. 



18 7 1. 




Roman Catholic... $510,07182 464,681 05 421,625 64 



Free German School 5,000 00 

German Mission Association 5,000 00 

College of St. Francis Xavier 

St. Peters' 

St. Columba Church 

Church of the Covenant 

Sisters of Mercy 

R. C. Oipliau Asylum 

Church of the Nativity 

Church of the Epiphany 

St. Vincent de Paul Orphan Asy- 
lum 

St. Joseph's Home 

The Shepherd's Fold 

School of Bethlehem 

St. Boniface Church School 

St. Patrick's Free School 

St. Francis Xavier's Male School 

" " Female " ■ 

Sacred Heart Female Academy ■ 

Church of the Annunciation • 

.< " " School 

St. Gabriel's Male ^^chool 

St. Gabriel's Female do 

St. Alphonsus' School 

Free School of St. Vincent 

Church <if the Holy Redeemer 

School of St. Francis of Assissi 

" of the Holy Cross 

" of the Nativity 

" of St. Chrysostom ■ • 

Orphan Asylum (Prince and Mott) 

Sisters of St. Mary 

Foundling Asylum 

School of the Order of the Sisters 

of St. Dominic 

N. Y. Catholic Protectory 



$ 3,fi00 00 

5,000 00 

7,272 30 

1,042 90 

1,987 28 

652 60 

436 00 

30,761 99 

645 45 

765 71 



4,480 00 
5,000 00 



15,000 


00 


3,000 


(lO 


5,000 


00 


770 00 


1,500 


00 


7,384 


00 


3,861 


00 


3,798 


Oo 


3,n00 


00 


3,174 


00 


7,449 


00 


4,581 


00 


3,ijOO 


00 


2,500 


00 


3,000 


00 


1,000 00 


3,00n 


00 


700 


(lO 


655 


00 



8,000 00 
5,000 00 

770"00 
I 6,167 00 



2,240 00 



2,240 00 



1,820 00 
2,520 00 



574 00 

10.000 00 

1,000 00 

9,173 06 

5,60i> 00 
19,050 40 



Protestant Episcopal, $29,335 09 
St. Bartholomew's Church 263 85 



842 50 

5,000 00 

271 00 



St. Luke's Hospital 

" for Indigent Females 

" Parochial School 

Church of the Incarnation 2,810 00 

St. PhiUip's P. E. Church 290 4 6 

Church 159 37 

School of St. Paul's Chapel '^E^ o*^ 

Church of the Holy Trinity 1,2/0 80 

Parish School of Trinity Church. . 704 bO 

Chapel. . 650 40 

St. Timothy's Church 1,''85 51 

St. Mary'3 " Manhattanvillle, 25 i 00 



$17,665 65 

j 1,250 00 ) 
I 263 85 S 
842 50 


$9,956 00 




5,00i> 00 




175 00 










844 00 

834 00 

596 00 

1,741 85 


721 00 

V.OOl 00 

287 00 





13 



1869. 



Protestant Episcopal — Continued. 
Parish School of the Church of the 

Redeemer $1,000 00 

New York Prot. Epis. Church 1,200 00 

79th St. Miss. School N. Y. Prot. 

E. Missionary Society 600 00 

School of St. John's Chapel 975 60 

Shepherd's Fold of the Protestant 

Church 500 00 

Church of the Holy Apostles 179 79 

" " Sepulchre 750 or> 

St. Clement's P. E. Church 156 00 

St. Mark's Church 689 22 

All Angels 1,177 28 

All Saints 529 88 



Church of Intercession 1,749 59 

St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Man- 

hattanville 323 00 

St. Mary's Episcopal Church, Sis- 
terhood 3,000 00 

Zion Church 

School of the Sheltering Arms. . . 

Memorial Church 

St. Thomas 

Grace Church 

St. Luke's Church 

Park Epis. School 

St. Bartholomew's Church School, 



69 58 

1,000 00 

370 86 



$764 00 

500 GO 

179 79 
750 00 
156 00 
689 22 
1,177 28 

315 on I 

214 39 \ 



900 00 



2,789 17 

447 06 

1,211 05 

1,200 00 



18 71 



$518 00 
280 00 



672 00 



560 00 
742 00 



Hebrew $14,404 49 

Congregation Shearith Israel .... $940 99 
" Anslie Chesed, Norfolk St. 402 20 

Hebrew Free School, No. 1 2,260 00 

Polonies Talmud Korah School. . . 542 00 

Congregation B. Israel. 68 30 

Adireth El 191 00 

Hebrew Benevolent Society Or- 
phan Asylum 5,001 00 

Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Asy- 
lum 5,000 00 

C' ing. Schaar Hashomayine 

Hebrew Free School, No. 2 

" S 

"4 



$7,135 07 

$940 99 


$4,312 00 




2,003 00 

500 00 

68 30 


$3,892 00 
420 00 










810 78 

992 00 

1,150 00 

1,170 00 









Eef. (Dutch) Church, $12,630 86 

Reformed Dutch Church, Harsen- 

ville, Bloomingdale $3,790 99 

Reformed Dutch Church, Harsen- 

ville, Bloomingdale 6,748 41 

Heformed Dutch Church, Wash- 
ington Square 1,143 46 



$9,589 20 



1,143 46 



u 



1869. 


18 7 0. 


18 71. 


Eef. (Dutch) Church — Continued. 
K. W. Prot. Ref. Dutch Church . . . $825 00 


$825 00 
123 00 
813 24 




True Reformed Dutch Churcli 123 00 




Reformed Dutch Church, Harlem, 




" " " Bloom- 
ingdale 


6,684 50 





Presbyterian $8,363 44 $5,597 08 



I I 



I I 



Canal Presbyterian Church 

Church of the Covenant 

Mercer Street Presbyterian Church. 
Manhattanville " " . . 

Eleventh " " . . 

84th Street " " . . 

13th Street " " . . 

Jane " " " . . 

Spring " " " . . 

Harlem " " . . 

Presbyterian Church, Cor. Houston 

and Thompson Street 

A Presbyterian Churcli 

" " Hospital 

Mariners' Church — Sea and Land. 
United Presbyterian Church, 44th 

Street 

United Presbyterian Ch. Charles 

Street 

Second Reformed Presbyterian 

Church 

First Reformed Presbj-terian 

Church 

Lexington Avenue Presbyterian 

Church 

11th Street Presbyterian Church. 



$130 00 

652 60 

1.280 00 

1,724 19 

384 00 

540 00 

208 00 

145 00 

414 00 

88 00 

150 00 

150 00 

1,400 00 

311 00 

292 00 

162 00 

140 50 

191 55 



Baptist $2,760 



Laight St. Baptist Church 

MacDougal St. Baptist Church.. . 
I^orth Baptist Church, Clirislopher 

Street 

53d St. Baptist Church 

Abyssmian Baptist Church 

Berean " " 

Baptist Church, Madison Street. . 
Olive Branch Baptist Church. . . . 
Harlem Secon'^ " " .... 

Tabernacle " " .... 

It*, B*ptiet Mariners' Church. , . 



60 341 


$170 


00 


195 


00 


1,000 


00 


637 09 1 


124 


00 


150 


00 


175 


00 


100 


00 


209 


25 




.., 



$130 OOi 



1,270 00 
1,724 79 



136 00 
414 00 

88 OOj 

150 go' 











292 00 








130 00 








878 29 
384 00 




$2,565 29 

$170 00 






195 00 




200 00 




637 09 
124 00 












209 25 
547 95 




482 00 





15 



18 69. 



Methodist Episcopal. $3,073 63 

Methodist Episcopal Church, 4th 

Av. and 22d Street $473 71 

Methodist Episcopal Ch., Bloom- 

ingdale 102 96 

Methodist Episcopal Church, York- 

ville 421 47 

Sullivan St. M. E. Church 208 00 

Bedford Street M. E. Church 306 00 

Forsyth " " " 250 00 

Green " " " .... 315 GO 

Jane " " " 129 00 

John " " " .... 255 00 

Janes " " " 10th 

Av. and 44th Street 91 09 

Sullivan Street M. E. Bethel Ch. . 221 00 
Second Church of Evangelical As- 
sociation of No. Am. 300 40 

Willet Street M. E. Church... 

St. Pauls' " " 

2d Street " " 

Lex. Ave. " " 



18 7 0. 



$4,197 32 



102 96 



208 00 
306 uO 
250 00 



1,272 72 
91 09 



316 16 

273 7 

246 99 

1,129 63 



German Evangelical, $2,027 24 

German and English Day School 

Ger. Refd. Church $1,150 00 

German Lutheran, St. Peter's 

Church 476 GO 

German Lutheran Church 54 00 

Evangelical " 216 00 

" American School Society 131 24 
" Evan. Luth. St. Mathias' 

Church 

German Evan. Luth, St. Luke's 

Church 

German Reformed Church School 



$1,666 92 



54 00 
216 00 



280 00 



81 92 
1,035 00 



Miscellaneous.... $44,085 12 $91,309 90 $58,649 00 



New York Magdalen Benevolent 

Societj' 5, 

Protestant Half Orphan Asylum. . 3, 

Wayside Industrial Home S, 

Free School New York Turiiverein 3, 
School N. Y. Juv. Soc'y and Or- 
phan Home School 4, 

An Evangelical Church 

Mission Church, 2nd Av., 125th 

St. (Congregational) 

Dover Street Free School 2, 



J5 : 

onn 


12 

GO 
85 
00 


054 


000 


800 


00 


336 


00 


300 


00 


594 


27 


,000 


GO 



5,000 GO 
2,646 00 



594 27 
1,500 OOi 



2,000 00 



2,800 00 



763 00 



IG 



1869. 


1870. 


1871. 


Miscellaneous — Continued. 
Union Home and School $10,000 00 


5,000 


00 




7,000 00 




Lying-in- Asylum, Marion Street. . 6,U00 00 


$3,000 00 


Third Universalist Church 


195 
3,260 

423 

10,000 
10,000 
3,000 
5,000 
6,000 
3,000 

8,000 
5,000 
3,000 

10,000 

3,000 

2,000 

139 

2,500 


00 
75 

00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 

00 
00 
00 

00 
00 
00 
16 
00 




Society for Benefit of Colored Orphans 

Society for Relief of Half Orphan an:l Desti- 
tute Children. 






Ladies Union Relief Association 


10,000 00 


N. y. .Infirmary, Women and Children 

Ladies' Christian Union 


10,000 00 
3,000 00 


Patriots' Orphan Home 

Ladies' Union Aid Society 

Association for Befriending Children 

Society for Reformation of Juvenile Delin- 
quents 


3,000 00 


3,000 00 


Female Assistance Society 

New York Dorcas Society 

American Female Guardian Society and Home 
ifor the Friendless 


3,000 00 
2,000 00 

6,000 00 


New York Juvenile Guardian Society 

School of Women's Prison ... 

Zion African Church 


371 00 


Wayside Industrial Home 




Ladies' Depository 


1,000 OO 


Chapin Home for Aged and Indigent 






7,000 00 


German Church 


532 

300 

168 

51 

1,000 


.S2 
40 
00 

00 
0(1 




Second Church of Evangelical Association . . . 
St. Paul's Church 






Emmanuel German Church 

School of the Epiphany 

Bethlehem Chapel School 




735 00 


German and English Free School 




00 


8(15 00 


School for Deaf Mutes 


1,000 


175 00 






Annual Totals $626,752 03 


604,407 ^ 


18 


494,542 64 



SUMMARY. 

Roman Catholic $1,396,388 51 

Protestant Episcopal 56,956 74 

Hebrew 25,851 56 

Ref. (Dutch) Church 22,210 06 

Presbyterian 13,960 52 

Baptist 5,325 63 

Methodist Episcopal 7,270 95 

German Evangelical 3,694 16 

Miscellaneous 194,044 02 

Grand Total for three years $1,725,702 15 



DEXTER A. HAWKINS, 

Chairman Com. on Political Reform 



CHARLES COLLINS, 

Secretary. 



NEW YOEK CITY COUNCIL 

rt 

OF 

POLITICAL REFORM. 

Official Dociiment on Extravagance of tlie Tammany Ring. 



Over $50,000,000 a year Spent and no Accounts 

tendered. 



Debt Increased in 28 Mouths, - - $50,134,138 65. 
Del)t Increased in last 4 Months, - 10,854,959 81. 



At a maeting of tlie Tweuiy-iirst Ward Council of Political 
Eeform, lielcl on the 29th June, 1871, the President, Honorable 
Thomas W. Gierke, in the Chair, General J. C. Jackson, Secre- 
tary, the following Report on the City and County Debt and 
Pinances was made by Dexter A. Hawkins, Esq., and by a 
unanimous vote ordered to be given to the press. 

At a meeting of the New York City County Council of Po- 
litical Eeform, held at their Rooms in the Plimpton Building 
on July 11, 1871, the Report was unanimously adopted as an 
Official Document of the Council, and ordered to be printed in 
pamphlet form for general circulation. 



Gentlemen : For two years and four months, ending on 
May 1st lust, the Mayor and Comptroller of the City of New- 
York kept the tax-payers and the public in ignorance of the 
manner in which they expended and disbui'sed the public 
revenue. 

NO ACCOUNTS MADE PUBLIC. 

In that period over $100,000,000 of public money passed 
through then* hands. Yet the law and the custom was clear 
and uniform that the Auditor should make a report quarterly, 
showing to a cent, first, for lohat every dollar of public money 
was paid out ; and second, to v:ltoiii paid ; and third, when 
paid : and that the Comptroller should make his reports at 
• the end of each year, showing for the year the whole financial 
transactions of the city and of the county, and a minute state- 
ment of the city and county debts and lialiilities ; and that on 
the 1st of January of each year the Mayor should, in his an- 
nual message, give to the public w summary statement of these 
important facts. 

The quarterly reports of the Auditor and the annual reports 
of the Comptroller were published and distributed to the press, 
and also to all tax-payers and bondholders who called for 
them. 

This honest and old-fashioned practice of our public serv- 
ants ceased on January 1, 1869 ! From that date till this 
present month of June, 1871, going on three years, they con- 
cealed from the public eye what they did with the public 
money. But in order to silence the public clamor, they did 
put forth, just before election, a false statement of the public 
debt, signed by three of the wealthiest men of the city, IMessrs. 
AsTOR, Egberts and Taylor. 

REPORTS MADE TO DECEIVE THE PEOPLE. 

Finally, on the 12th of this month, the Ma3-or and Comp- 
troller, in general statements and rounel numbers, claim to tell 



US what they liave done witli over one liundred millions of 
public money, and wliat is the present debt of the city and 
county. But no AndUors report is made puhllc ; yet it is only the 
Auditor's report that will show to lohom the money was paid, 
and lohen paid, and for what paid. 

No Comptroller's report even is made pubhc for the year 
1869. 

These statements have not the clearness; footings, system or 
particulars that heretofore have characterized such documents. 
They hear on their face eiidence of an intention to mislead, and 
confuse, and deceive, instead of to enlighten the tax-payer and 
Ijuhllc creditor. 

ENORMOUS GROWTH OF DEBT OFFICIALLY 
ADMITTED. 

But the figures of the Mayor and Comptroller show : 

1. A greater expenditure, 

2. A larger indebledness, and 

3. A more recMess extravagance than the bitterest enemies of 
the city rulers had ever alleged against them. 

In order to show clearly the financial character of their 
administration, I have compiled wholly from qfficlcd sources, and 
had examined by an accountant, the following annual tables, 
showing the city debt and the covmty debt fi^om December 31, 
1858, to May 1, 1871, excepting the year 1869 ; no report has ever 
been made public for that year, and as the tax-payers are not 
permitted to inspect the public accounts, I could not fill out 
the table for 1869. 

The report for the year ending Dec. 31, 1870, was not made 
till the 12th of this present month of June; being after the adjourn- 
ment of the Legislcdure. 

The city and county are the same in territory and popula- 
tion, and up to January 1, 1859, their accounts were kept 
together. Since then two sets of accounts have been kept, and 
two sets of reports made, one for the city and one for the 
county. But the same persons and same property are taxed 
to pay the debts and expenses of both the city and county; 
hence they may be treated as a unit. 



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WITH HONESTY THERE WOULB BE NO INCREASE 

OF BEST, 

There was no necessity for adding a dollar to the city or 
county debts since 1868, for the taxes, assessments and annual 
income from various som-ces, called in the accounts the Gen- 
eral Fund, were sufficient, if administered with common pru- 
dence and honesty, to pay all the expenses of the city and 
county, as the following figures show : 

1870, Taxes levied $23,569,127 71 

1870, Assessments, new lists of 1870 5,715,071 09 

1870, GeneralFund 2,457,772 35 



Total for 1870 ■. $31,741,971 15 

No account was rendered for 1869 ; but assum- 
ing it to be the same as 1870 (if not so 
they can give the public the accounts) . . . $31,741,971 15 



Total means without resort to loans . . . $635483,942 30 
The additions to funded and bonded city and 

county debt in 1869 and 1870 were $39,279,178 84 

Hence amount expended in the two 

years $102,763,121 14 

Average expenditure per year $51,381,560 57 

The above tables include only the funded and bonded debt 
of the city and county. How large the floating debt now is 
our city rulers refuse to disclose. We know it is reckoned by 
millions, and nothing but the " Consolidated Debt Act" which 
authorize the issue of long bonds for the whole debt of the 
city and of the county, and the stay-laio clause of the so-called 
" Tiuo Per Cent. Act," staying judgments against the city, has 
saved the City and County Treasury this year from bank- 
ruptc}^ 

This floatmg debt in 1868 was so large that the revenue of 
the year 1869 had to be anticipated to meet it. (See Sections 
7 and 8, Chapter 853, Laws of 1868.) 



6 

ACCUMULATED DEBT BONDS IN TWO YEARS 
$12,500,000. 

In 1869 it was overcome by authorizing tlie issuing of long 
seven per cent, bonds, called " Accumulated Debt Bonds " (see 
Section 4, Chapter 876, Laws of 1869), and in that year 
$6,000,000 were issued. 

In 1870, for a like purpose, six and a half millions ($6,500,- 
000) of these bonds were issued, and all upon claims adjusted 
and paid by and through one and the same man, the Comptroller. 

WHERE THE RING GOT THEIR SUDDEN WEALTH. 

In a sound fiscal system one officer adjusts claims and 
another jxiys them. From the weakness of human nature it is 
not deemed wise or prudent for the government of any great 
city or county to allow the same officer to adjust a claim who is 
to pay it ; lest he may be tempted by a share of the money 
to conspire with the claimant and allow an unjust claim. 

But in our city, in 1869 and 1870, a siiuile officer, the Comp- 
troller, adjiisted and paid, by adding so much to the permanent 
debt, $12,500,000 of claims ! 

The United States Government requires every claim to be 
investigated, first by an Auditor, then his decision to be re- 
viewed by a Comptroller ; after that a third officer examines 
the account, and, if found correct, issues the warrant on the 
Treasury for payment. 

There cannot be too many checks on these public plun- 
derers. 

At the close of the Mexican war, the Third Auditor, alone, 
by an Act of Congi-ess, was empowered to adjust and pay cer- 
tain claims for lost tools, wagons, animals and boats. The 
amoimts were small. But, during the EebeUiou, the word 
"boats" having been held to include " sfea?«-boats," the 
claims became large, and Congress immediately took the 
power from the Third Auditor, and required these claims, Hke 
all others, to go from the Auditor to the Comptroller, and then 
to a third officer for payment. 

Accumulated debt bonds, $12,500,000 in two years, have to 
tax-payers and public creditors a disagi-eeable sound. The 



Comptroller, liowever, in liis report, kindlj saves their nerves 
bj gi^'ing no liglit upon, and saying the least possible about, 
this unpleasant item. 

April, 1870, there were many milhons of floating claims 
against the county ; claims that the holders did not wish to 
submit to judicial investigation. 

By Section 4, of Chapter 382, Lav/s of 1870, the scrutiny of 
the Courts was avoided, and the Mayor, Comptroller, and the 
then President of the then Board of Supervisors, were author- 
ized to audit these claims, and the Comptroller to pay them by 
revenue bonds, payable in 1871. Some tax-joayers ivere so 
iU-mannered as to allege that these claims were owned or con- 
trolled by the friends of the three adjusters. But the public 
nerves are again saved by giving no explanation upon this 
matter. 

In one year these three gentlemen, with commendable dili- 
gence and silence, audited and paid $6,312,541 37 of these 
claims against the county, and, in so doing, absorbed in ad- 
vance the county revenues of this year. 

These ofl&cers have been repeatedly requested to give the 
pubhc a statement of the claims audited and paid under that 
section, but they disclosed nothing. 

They were then charged with having paid out on these claims, 
doubtful at best, ^^ ye millions. 

The Comptroller's Eeport shows $6,312,541 37 paid by issu- 
ing $6,312,000 of bonds, falling due next December. But as 
there is no money to pay these sliort hands, they are, under the 
" Consolidated Debt Act," to be converted into long bonds, and 
added to the permanent debt of the county. This secret Court 
may have audited millions more, and they may go on auditing 
and paying by issuing short bonds and then converting them 
into long bonds mthout limit. It is a mine almost as rich, to 
the workers of it, as the Erie Eailroad — and controlled by the 
same King. 

We have in these two items, -vaz. : Claims adjusted and paid by 
the Comptroller alone, $12,500,000, and claims adjusted by the 
trio, $6,312,541 37, and paid by one of the trio issuing $6,312,000 
of revenue bonds, the modest sum of $18,812,000 added to the 
permanent debt of the city and county. 



8 

THEY BORROW MONEY TO PAY OUR SHARE 
OF STATE TAX. 

Thej squandered the money wrung from the tax-payers in 
1869 and 1870 to such an extent that they were unable to pay 
the city's quota of the State taxes, and then borrowed the 
money to pay State taxes by issuing seven per cent, long 
bonds, called, by way of joke I presume, " Tax Belief Bonds," 
which of $5,767,000 they admit to have been issued, and are 
now outstanding. 

■r "We might in that way, if capitalists would lend to us, be 
relieved entirely from taxes until the " Tax Belief Bonds," and 
interest, equaled our property, when the public creditor could 
foreclose upon us, take our whole estates, and so reheve us 
from taxes for all future time. The financial management of 
om- city rulers for the last twenty-eight months would seem to 
indicate that this is their benevolent intention ! 

Our city rulers were charged last April, by their political 
opponents, with having swelled the city debt up to seventy mil- 
lions, and that, for fear of public indignation, they dared not 
make the usual reports. 

They now officially admit the funded and bonded debt at 
that time to have been over eighty-four millions — in addition 
to this is the floating debt. 

THEY INCREASE OUR DEBT ANNUALLY 
$21,486,059.40. 

They admit officially that in the last twenty-eight months 
they have added over fifty millions ($50,134,138 65) to the city 
and county funded and bonded debt, besides the floating debt. 

They admit officially, that in the last four months they have 
added nearly eleven millions ($10,854,959 81) to the city and 
county funded and bonded debt, and this does not include the 
floating debt. 

If the wealthiest merchant in this city would allow his em- 
ployees to manage his finances in this way, he would soon be 
found in the Court of Bankruptcy. 

The city and county are subject to the same inexorable law 
of finance, and are going at a gallop down the same road. The 



Mayor sees it, and as counsellor for the party that for ten years 
haye ruled the city, took six weeks to prepare and shape his 
message, so as, if possible, to appease or turn aside the public 



indignation. 



He tries to save himself and friends by reference to the na- 
tional finances. 



CONTRAST BETWEEN CITY AND NATIONAL 

FINANCES. 

liet us see how the fiscal management of the, city compares 
%\ith that of the nation. 

The city rulers showed no account for twenty-eiglit months. 

The national rulers report in full and minutely on thefrst daif 
of each month, for the preceding month, furnish the report to 
the press, from Maine to California, and mail a tabular state- 
ment to eveiy one who asks for it. 

The city rulers in the last two years more them doubled the 
city debt. 

The national rulers in the same period reduced the debt of the 
nation eight per cent., and reduced taxation some tiventy per cent. 

Comptroller Connolly gives not a line of explanation of the 
$18,812,000 added to the city and county debt in two years, 
on claims adjusted by himseK alone, and himself and the Mayor 
and President of the Board of Supervisors, hut he devotes seven 
•pages to a vain attempt to shoio that the debt tuill pay itself in forty 
years without resort to taxation, and leave a balance of twenty- 
seven millions in the treasury ! 

. "Where does he and the whole Eing propose to go for that 
forty years? For, judging the future by the past, the debt 
will never be paid, or the Treasury contain a dollar of balance, 
so long as they hold the keys to it. 



10 

OUR WHOLE PROPERTY TO BE ENGULFED 
IN DEBT. 

Their own figures sliow this : 

The total vahiation of the real and personal 

estates in the county is $1,047,520,224 00 

The net city and county funded and bonded 

debt April 30, 1871, '.vas 84,541,186 56 

Present amount of real and personal estates 

not already swallowed up by the debts. . . $962,979,037 44 
Now the Mayor, Comptroller and the Eing 

have, in the last twenty-eight months, 

added $50,134,138 65 to the debt. At 

this rate, in forty-five years, they would 

add 966,872,573 04 

To the debt, which exceeds all our estates, 

real and personal, by 3,893,535 60 

We then shall need no more " Tax Relwf Bonds'' for we shall 
have been kindly reUeved by these gentlemen of our whole es- 
tates, and hence have nothimj to be taxed. 

At the rate they have added to the debt in the last four months, 
in thirty years they would swallow up in debt our whole 
estates and $1,396,685 46 over. 

Public servants never refuse to obey the law and shov/ their 
hands when they have honest hands to show. 

The municipal extravagance, corruption and incapacity of 
the last twenty-eight months is unexampled in history. 

No city or county can show its equal. 

Until our city rulers produce their accounts and vouchers, 
and dehver to the public the regular quarterly reports of the 
Auditors for the last twenty-eight months, showing to ichom, 
luhen and/or what they paid the /owr millions a month spent by 
them in that period, tax-payers and the public creditors can- 
not avoid the behef that a large part of it was stolen, traitor- 
ously stolen. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE 



NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL OF POLITICAL REFORM. 



W. F. Havemeyer, 
Geo. C. Barrett, 
J. H. Ockershausen, 
Robert Haydock, 
Cephas Brainard, 
Hooper C. Van Voorst, 
James M. Halsted, 
Jackson S. Schultz, 
Henry Nicoll, 

E. L. Fansher, 
Charles Butler, 
Zopher Mills, 
Isaac H. Bailey, 
Thos. C. Acton, 
C. C. Colgate, 
Hiram Merritt, 

J. C. Havemeyer, 
Robert Hoe, 
Geo. Hencken. Jr., 
Richard Kelley, 
C. L. Brace, 
John Hecker, 
John Elliott, 

F. C. Bowman, 
J. C. Holden, 



John Wheeler, 

D. Willis James, 
Dexter A. Hawkins. 
John Stephenson, 
Geo. J. Hamilton, 
A. R. Wetmore, 

R. H. McCurdy, 
Alfred C. Post, M. D., 
W. Walter Phelps, 

E. B. Wesley, 
A. S. Hatch, 

J. Pierpont Morgan, 
0. S. Strong. 
John Falconer, 
Geo. P. Putnam, 
S. S. Constant, 
Allan Hay, 
W. H. Jackson, 
Elisha Harris, M. T>., 
S. D. Moulton,^ 
Robert Sewell, 
James Davis, 
W. H. Nelson, 
Theophilus Brown, 
Richard Warren. 



H. N. BEERS, 

Secretary. 



HENRY CLEWS, 

Banker, 32 Wall Street, 

Treasurer. 



POLITICAL REFORM 



DOCUMENT No. 4. 



At the meeting of the STATE COUNCIL OF POLITICAL 

EEFORM, held in Tiveddle Hall, at Albany, on the 12^/i 

and 13th days of April, 1870, the Committee on 

Endowment and Suppoet, by The State ofl' 

Sectarian Institutions, 'presented the folloM*= 

ing Report and Resolutions, which ivere 

by the Council unanimously adopted. 



EEPORT : 

In governments like ours, one of the first and highest 
duties of the State is to take care that every child is educated 
sufficiently to qualify him to discharge the duties of a citizen 
of the Eepubhc. 

Aristotle taught that the education of youth ought to have 
the principal part of the Legislators' attention. 

The founders of our Government fully appreciated this. 

Congress, in the Ordinance of 1787, enacts that 

" Schools and the means of education shall be forever en- 
couraged." 

Washington, in his first message to Congress, said : 
Knowledge in every country is the surest basis of pubUc 
nappiness. To the security of a free constitution it con- 
tributes by convincing those who are entrusted with the pubKc 
administration, that every valuable end of government is best 
answered by the enlightened confidence of the people ; and by 
teaching the people themselves to know and value their own 
rights, to discern and provide against invasions of them. 



In liis farewell address lie says : 

Promote as an object of primary importance, institutions for 
the general diffusion of knowledge. 

Thomas Jefferson says : 

A system of general instruction which shall reach every 
descrij)tion of our citizens, from the richest to the jjoorest, as it was 
the earliest so it shall be the latest of all public concerns in 
which I shall permit myself to take an interest. Give it to us 
in any shape, and receive for the inestimable boon, the thanks 
of the young and the blessings of the old. 

John Jay says : 

The importance of Common Schools is best estimated hy the 
good efects of them, lohere they most abound and are best regulated. 

Benjamin Rush says : 

Establish and sujDporf Public Schools in every part of the State. 

DeWitt Clinton says : 

A general diffusion of knowledge is the p)f'€-cursor and pro- 
tector of RepidMcan Institutions ; and in it we must confide as 
the conservative power that will watch our own liberties and 
guard them against fraud, intrigue, corruption and violence. I 
consider the system of our Common Schools as the paladiuin of our 
freedom. 

Chancellor Kent says : 

The parent who sends his son into the world uneducated, 

defrauds the community of a laivful citizen, and bequeaths to it a 
nuisance. 

Milton uttered this great truth : 

To make the j^sople fittest to cJtoose, and the chosen fittest to 
govern, we must teach the people. 

Lord Brougham, speaking of the strength and defence of the 
Enghsli government, said : 

The schoolmaster is abroad,, and I trust to him, armed ivith his 
primer. 

Guizot, Minister of Public Instruction in Prance, said : 
Universal education is henceforth one of the guarantees of lib- 
erty and social stability. As every principle of our government 



is founded ou justice and reason, to diffuse education among 
the people, to develop their understandings, and enhghten 
their minds, is to strengthen their constitutional government, 
and secure its stability. 

Horace Mann, the great apostle of popular education in 
this country, says : 

For augmenting the aggregate amount of intelligence and 
mental power in any community, the grandest instrumenialily 
^vcr yet devised is the institution of Common Schools. The Com- 
mon School realizes all the facts or fables, whichever they 
may be, of the divining rod. It. tries its experiments over the 
tvJiole surface of society, and wherever a buried fountain of 
genius is flowing in the darkness below, it brings it above and 
pours out its waters to fertilize the earth. 

Under the magic touch of the Common School, Shermans 
rise from the shoemaker's bench, Beechers from the black- 
smith's anvil, Bowditchs and Frankhns from the soap chand- 
ler's and tallow chandler's shops, and a new galaxy shines forth 
over all the firmament of genius. 

Education in a repuUic must be universal, tJie ivhole land must 
he loatered toith the streams of hioivkdge. 

All 'admit that education is essential to the intelligent exer- 
cise in a free country of the rights of citizenship, and to the 
preservation of our free and tolerant government : hence the 
Jmerican doctrine that the State owes an education to all its chil- 
dren as an obligation, and not a charity, and each child has a right 
to demand from the Stcde a generous and unseciarian secular 
education, such as shall fit Mm. to be a citizen of a free and tolerant 
Tcpuhlic. 

Since 1867 this obligation has been recognized and fulfilled 
by the State of New York. 

All property subject to taxation is taxed for the Common 
Schools, and the money distributed according to the number 
of children. The estate of the childless millionaire contributes 
its due proj)ortion to make intelligent citizens of the children 
of his penniless neighbor. The accumulated wealth of the 
Metropolis, drawn from every corner of the State, lielps sup- 
port Primary Schools in the poorest and least favored towns. 



In every country, as in Prussia, Switzerland, and the United 
States, where the State assumes this obligation, intelligence 
and prosperity increase ; while on the other hand, in every 
country, where secular education has been left to the churcli,^ 
or to voluntary contributions, as in Italy, Spain, and Mexico, 
ignorance, bigotry and oppression, political and religious, de- 
gradation, poverty and misery among the masses, jDrevails. 

American Liberty says to her children: "Come all ye wha 
thirst for knowledge and drink, free of cost, at the Pubho 
Fountains of intellectual health." But "No," says European 
and Theocratic Despotism, " thirst on, until I can poison the 
fountains with Sectarian bigotry, or if the State will not allow 
me to jjoison them all, it must at least set off to me a part of 
the public money, that I may build fountains dedicated to 
Sectarian Hate." Years ago we had Sectarian Schools in 
New York City, and boys of the Schools of one sect amused 
themselves by pounding those of another sect. Boys soon 
become men, and prejudices of the School-room become ruling 
principles of manhood. Germany at one time had only Sec- 
tarian Schools, and she reaped a full harvest of Sectarian: 
thistles and thorns in a terrible thirty years' religious luar. 

The founders of our Government read history, and they 
guarded us effectually from Beligious wars by excluding any 
form of Religion entirely fi-om affairs of State. Our Gov- 
ernment recognizes the perfect right of every one to have 
whatever religion he pleases, or none at all if he wishes, and 
protects him in the peacefid enjoyment of that right. Beyond 
this it cannot go. It has no power to teach the tenets of any 
sect, and has no right to appropriate public property or 
public money to any sect. 

But we have a very respectable body of citizens, most of 
them not bom in this country, but led by a highly cultivated 
priesthood, nearly all of whom were educated iinder a foreign 
theocratic despotism, who demand the destniction of our 
American System of free Non-Sectarian Common Schools, and 
the substitution of the Sectarian Charity System of Italy. As 
an entering wedge to bring about this revolution, they demand 
from the PubUc Treasury, money to support their Church 
Schools; and corruption in high places has granted their 
request. 



They admit that our Public Schools give an excellent secular 
education ; but they complain that they cannot enter there and 
teach at public expense the pecuHar doctrines and practices of 
their sect. Hence and hence only their complaint, and their 
coarse denunciation of our Free Schools as coming from the 
devil. 

We cannot yield one jot or one tittle of their demand,/b?* it 
involves a principle to us sacred and vital. It means the Union 
of Church and State. 

It is a fundamental principle of our whole civil polity to keep 
Church and State entirely separate — a principle incorporated 
into our National Constitution, and also into every one of our 
State constitutions. 

It is our profound conviction that the sacred interests of 
religion, of conscience and of domestic peace, require this separa- 
tion to be strict and perpetual. 

The moment the State takes under its protection any church 
by appropriating public money or property to the uses or sup- 
port of that church, or the teaching of its peculiar tenets or 
practices, it in that act and to that extent, unites State and 
Church, and estabhshes a principle that revolutionizes our 
whole political and religious system, and brings back upon us 
the spiritual tyranny that the founders of our country fled from 
England and France to escape. The union of Church and 
State, in all ages and in all countries, has led to oppression and 
bloodshed. 

The sect that seek the destruction of our Common Schools 
have entrenched themselves in New York City. Their Bishop, 
forty years ago, demanded a j)art of the School money. It was 
refused. Ten years later the demand was renewed with a like 
result. He then came to Albany," fixed " the Govenor and lead- 
ing politicians, and went before the Legislature for a law to 
compel New York City to let his church into the city treasury. 
The Legislature, with almost unanimity, rejected his proposal. 

Then the plan of attack upon the Public Schools was altered. 
Church charitable institutions, many of which were sectarian 
schools in disguise, were started, and pubHc money from City and 
State was obtained from year to year to support them. Finally, 



last year, a bill was reported in the Legislatm-e to appropriate 
some $200,000 of public money, directly to sectarian institutions 
by name. The bill was rejected. Then fraud and deceit were 
resorted to, and Section 10 was secretly smuggled into the New 
York City tax levy at the last moment of the session, which 
takes over $200,000 a year out of our public treasury, and gives 
it to a few useless sectarian schools ; useless because the Free 
Non-Sectarian Public Schools of the City already amply provided 
for all the children. 

The enormity of this legislation led us to investigate, and to 
our astonishment we found that, aided by this statute and a city 
government controlled by one religious sect, more than half a 
million of dollars annually of the public money of the City of 
New York is abstracted from the city treasury and given to cer- 
tain Churches, and Church and Sectarian Schools ; thus uniting 
Church and State, and making the State support the Church. 

Besides this we found that a single sect had obtained from 
the city government more than three milhons of dollars' worth 
of pubUc property, and applied it to sectarian uses. 

These startling discoveries show that a new, a foreign, a des- 
potic, a destructive principle has crept into our legislation, 
State and Municipal ; a principle so fatally poisonous that un- 
less speedily uprooted, it will soon reach every town, destroy 
our Free Common Schools, control legislative bodies, establish 
a State Church, and bring upon us the ignorance, corruption, 
and alternate anarchy and despotism, with which it has cursed 
Italy, Spain and Mexico. 

To save our State from that we must first demand the re- 
peal of all State Laws appropriating or authorizing the appro- 
priation of Public Money to sectarian uses. Second, to secure 
the future we must effect an amendment to the Constitution of 
the State so as to prohibit any such legislation by Town, City, 
or State. 

EESOLUTIONS : 

" Therefore, Resolved, That we enter our emphatic protest 
against the appropriation of public money or property, by 
town, city, state or national authorities, for the endowment or 
support of churches, convents, sectarian schools and institutions. 



" Resolved, That every such appropriation is in fact a union 
of Church and State, a violation of the sacred American prin- 
ciples of religious hberty, and of equality of all denominations 
before the civil law ; principles which have been the glory of 
our institutions in the past, and iiave been illustrated in the 
complete separation and independence of Church and State. 

" Resolved, That any and every rehgious sect which attempts 
to support its churches, sectarian schools, or church charities 
by the public money raised by general taxation, or by pubhc 
property is, by that act, uniting Church and State, introducing 
sectarian bitterness into politics, and deserves the condemna- 
tion of all good citizens. 

"Resolved, That every appropriation of public money to 
sectarian schools is an attack iipon the free non-sectarian j^uhlic 
schools of this State, ivhich schools noiv — ivith a liberality ivorthy a 
great republic — qfer, free of cost, to every child in the State a 
generous and tolerant education ; such an education as qualifies 
him for the duties of citizenship. 

" Resolved, That section 10, chapter 876 of the laws of 1869, 
relating to the City of New York, which in fact, though not in 
name, appropriates nearly a quarter of a million of dollars 
annually to a few sectarian schools in this city, is unnecessary, 
was not called for by the people, is a violation of the American 
doctrine of equal toleration and p>rotection to all religious sects, 
hut public su2')port to none, and unless repealed, will at once, and 
for the first time, introduce sectarian rancor into American 
politics, and array at the ballot-box the Protestants against 
the Roman Cathohcs. 

" Resolved, That the Legislatui-e be petitioned, and is hereby 
called upon, to repeal the said section and all similar Jaws, and 
to take the yeas and nays on the vote, in order that the people 
may know what members are for the Free Schools, and what 
members are for a State Church, and for tm'ning education 
over to the bickerings of religious sects. 

" Resolved, That an amendment to the Constitution of the 
State, absolutely forbidding all appropriations of pubhc money 
or property to the endowment or support of rehgious or sec- 
tarian institutions, is imperatively demanded, and next to 
direct and immediate efibrts to preserve our Free Public 
Schools, shall be a special object of our State organization for 
Political Reform." 

DEXTER A. HAWKINS, New Yoek, 

Chairman of Committee. 






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